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Nancy Schiesari

Associate Faculty
— MFA

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Biography

Director of Photography on over 30 documentaries and feature films broadcast for England's Channel 4, BBC, ABC, National Geographic, and PBS. Nancy Schiesari has filmed in Europe, the U.S., Africa, India, Pakistan, Iceland, and Latin America.

She directed and produced the documentary Hansel Mieth-Vagabond Photographer which premiered on PBS's The Independent Lens in May 2003. Schiesari also directed a profile on Martin Scorsese for the BBC 4 series, Profiles, which coincided with the release date of Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2003).

In 1984, Schiesari produced and directed the highly original project Green Flutes, for Channel Four Television in the UK. In this feature length documentary, Schiesari explores the expanding political awareness of a young Scottish band of Catholic musicians who annually tour in Northern Ireland in support of Irish Nationalist activities. Her narrative short Loaves and Fishes premiered at 2000 South by Southwest Film Festival, screened at numerous film festivals, and was broadcast on PBS experimental film series The Territory in 2001.

She was nominated for a 2002 Television Emmy for outstanding cinematography on The Human Face (producer John Cleese). Among her work as a cinematographer is Barbara Sonneborn's Academy Award nominated documentary, Regret to Inform.

Included in her prolific credits as director of photography are A Place of Rage, winner of the Black History Award (1991) and Warrior Marks (1994), (executive produced by Alice Walker), winner of the Public's Award for Best Documentary at the Madrid Festival International De Cine and Partition, a 35mm feature staring Roshan Seth and Saheed Jafrey for Channel Four (1989).

Among Schiesari's latest accolades are the a Cine Golden Eagle Award (1994), Dean's Fellowship (1997), the Texas Council for Humanities Grant (1998), a Texas Film Production Grant (1998), and a nomination for the Rockefeller Foundation Film/Video/Multimedia Fellowship (2000). Her insights as a filmmaker and her deep commitment to public service have inspired Schiesari to write, direct, produce, and D.P. a series of educational films. Two of her public services films, Jan Hughes and Molly Meets Marlene, recently won Chris awards from the Columbus International Film and Video Festival. Another public service film on bicycle safety won the Silver Apple National Educational Media Award.

In 2006 she produced six profiles on Texans who made a difference in society for the Annett Strauss Institute. She is currently in post production on "Fort Hood Diaries," a KLRU PBS station sponsored project, and has begun research for a future documentary on the OSS and the Italian Resistance in WWII.

Schiesari has settled down in Austin, Texas with her two children, and while pursuing her directing career, lectures as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.